The University and College Union at Queens University Belfast is highlighting the excessive demands being placed on workers currently in probationary periods.
The ongoing concern over increasing demands on probationary staff has been highlighted in a current dispute with management in the School of Medicine, Dentistry and Biomedical Sciences. UCU suspect that excessive workloads being placed on staff not yet in confirmed-positions may be widespread throughout the university.
UCU has arranged meeting for workers on probation for Thursday, 18th September at 1pm in room 121 Lanyon South at Queens. The focus is to make workers aware of probation procedures and their rights with respect to workload demands during this period. UCU is concerned that university management may increase the attacks on workloads and conditions for probationary staff and is building a portfolio of incidents and grievance concerning staff you in yet in confirmed positions. The union has requested information from workers concerning:
1. The retrospective imposition of new targets for confirmation in post
2. Any instances of pressure being exerted on mentors and ad hoc committees to unreasonably raise the bar
3. Any other issues of which you are aware
Management at the university have also attempted to bring in compulsory redundancies for the first time this year - threatened strike action by UCU members was halted when management shelved the forced-redundancies, for the time being.
Comments
Hrm, I thought this may
Hrm, I thought this may pertain to our organizing drive at Queen's, but whoops, wrong Queen's.